National Tests Highlight Achievement Gap in Connecticut

October 15, 2009

Connecticut continues to have the widest disparity in the country between poor students and their better-off peers across the state according to The Nation's Report Card, the official reporting body on test results conducted by The National Assessment of Education Progress ("NAEP"). See The Nation's Report Card: Mathematics 2009 at http://nationsreportcard.gov ; see also M. Spencer, Standardized Math Tests Show State's Economic, Ethnic Disparities Persist, The Hartford Courant (October 15, 2009).

These test results place Connecticut near the bottom in terms of the gap between white students and black and Hispanic students. Perhaps more telling are the details of the Connecticut scores that reflect that eighteen (18) per cent of economically disadvantaged students in Connecticut scored at the proficient level, compared with fifty-eight (58) percent of other students in the state.

"It is our sincere hope that we conclude as a state that these results are simply unacceptable," Gary H. Collins, founder and CEO of the Collins Foundation Inc. said today. "While resources are not the only issue, this study again confirms that economically disadvantaged students--regardless of race or ethnicity--will continue to lag behind other students in the state until we commit ourselves to a long term course of action to address the resource gap."

The results released by the Nation's Report Card this past week were for the math portion of the test that were administered in 2009. The reading results will be released later in the year. Congress requires the test to be given every two years to a sample of students in every state.

For more on The Nation’s Report CardTM see http://nationsreportcard.gov.